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Yeah, that’s right. I’m not doing an article about Captain America today. Uh huh! Eat it! And eat a delicious, grilled hotdog. And maybe a burger. With a cold one. And fireworks.
Happy 4th from the guys (and girl) at 4th.
I’m definitely a fan of Dwayne McDuffie. I’ve spoken at length about how disappointed I was that DC hamstrung his run on JLA, leading to an uneven pace, choppy character work, and a general feeling of unease. I was actually surprised when I saw this post on his website:
Here’s a preview of my final issue of Justice League of America, featuring the JLA teaming with Icon and Hardware in battle with Starbreaker. Don’t miss the secret of how the Milestone heroes ended up in DC Comics’ continuity.
I also suggest you take a look at some of the comments from your fellow comic book fans. Every once in awhile, I’m reminded how racially backwards a portion of our audience is and how important it is to… You know what? I’ll let them speak for themselves:
“…how many blacks did McDuffie manage to sneak onto the team this time–five? (I bet DC editorial gave him the same order as Burger King in that lawsuit–to “lighten things up around here.”)”
“Why don’t they call this the “Minority League”? ”
“I don’t think anyone will support an original black “mainstream” character. I know I won’t.”
“Couldn’t they get Static, Black Lightning, or one of his daughters instead of Dr. Light on the cover of BET League of America? Ha!”
“Maybe they should establish a separate league for all the negro superheroes. I’m not saying kick them ALL off. One would be okay. (Doesn’t Hollywood have some kind of law that says every movie has to have at least one black in it?) I just think they’re going overboard with all this diversity stuff. I mean, how many comics do minorities read anyway?”
Dwayne again. Welcome to my world. You know, the one where race doesn’t matter…
The comments come from Newsarama’s preview of JLA #34. It’s fair to say that I got a little pissed over it. I took a break, wrote a review, and decided to come back and write about it some, because I still think it’s ridiculous.
Newsarama is basically one of the three biggest comic sites on the internet. It’s only competitors are Comic Book Resources and IGN’s comics section. When people look for comics news, they go to CBR or Newsarama. It’s one of the outlets for mainstream comics.
So, why does it suck?
I like some of it. Jimmy Palmiotti’s column on Blog@, Brandon Thomas’s Ambidextrous, Chris Arrant, and Vaneta Rogers’s interviews are all great. I generally enjoy all of those. The rest of it, though, seems to be a pit of low standards and fluff pieces.
A bunch of smart people consider Newsarama’s forums among the lowest of the low. They’ve got a rep for being terrible. Honestly? It’s true. The boards are filled with mouth breathing bottom feeding neckbeard douchebags who have nothing better to do than put their illiteracy on display for every to see.
The comments I quoted above appear below a preview of Justice League of America, a book that has been consistently in the top 10 of comics sold and is written by a man who is the highest profile black writer in comics and a well-respected one in animation. This isn’t exactly Johnny Noname shopping around his Spawn ripoff. Many of the comments are clearly racist in nature, which is in direct violation of Imaginova’s TOS, but the commenters have yet to be banned or even have their comments deleted. A few of them are regulars. What am I missing?
Basically, judging by this, a lot of comic fans deserve the mouth-breathing manchild reputation that fanboys get. This sort of thing is pathetic, and for Newsarama to allow it on their servers, when they are one of the gatekeepers of comics news and culture, is ridiculous. It makes me not even want to interact with these people or read the same books they do, just so that I’m not guilty of being stupid by association.
Recently there was a post on spoilers on io9, and a little dust-up over them at the new scans_daily, and it got me thinking about the popularity of spoilers in general. The io9 post dealt with someone who asserted that spoilers were a status symbol among fans, and that’s why people love them so. This concept is alien to me. I don’t doubt that there are a few big men out there, bragging about their inside information, but fans can turn anything into a status symbol, from bagging and boarding to camping out outside a movie theater in order to ensure that you are the first person to get tickets to a movie that anyone can see two hours later. Plus, the few people I’ve met who have legitimate spoilers just seemed happy to be able to share the information.
The scans_daily scuffle was more understandable to me. Fans posted the last page of the latest Wonder Woman comic, in which a big change is made. This change was what the last eight issues had been leading up to. Creator Gail Simone showed up in the comments, annoyed that the point of eight months worth of comics was revealed abruptly online instead of at the end of the book, as she had intended.
I’ve tried my hand at creative work, and I can understand the frustration that creators must feel. Working on a narrative is about building an specific experience. You want your audience to have moments of enjoyment, frustration, suspense and revelation. So have someone sum it all up with ‘the butler did it’ renders the whole experience, and your work, meaningless.
At the same time, I can understand very well why fans clamor for spoilers. Most of the time, I prefer them. Not all kinds of suspense are pleasant. I can’t enjoy a story all that well if I spend the whole time wondering if I’m going to get stuck with continuity that I hate at the end of it. The pacing of comics often compounds this. Story lines are stretching longer and longer, meaning that a story can pose a question one year that won’t be answered until two years later. I don’t want to pick up a story and think, “Wow. The Christmas after next, when I figure out what the hell is going on, is going to be gooood.” I want to know where I’m going so I can stretch out and enjoy the trip.
I guess who you think is right depends on who you think has rights to a story. Is it the creator’s to give out as they wish? Or do fans have the final say in how they want to enjoy the stories they buy?
For the hell of it, 4th Letter is now on Facebook! Yeah! If you’re on Facebook, give us a little love.
I’ll mess around with it later, but I figured it might be a cool thing to have around. Maybe. Hopefully. I don’t know.
Crap, this post is too short. I’m going to need something to beef it up…
Blame Suben for making me aware of this. It’s his fault.
